Chapter 19
Iam not insane.
For the sake of honesty, I may exhibit acute signs of madness. But I am not insane. This is an important distinction to make.
Our wondrous brain, with its complex processes and synapses, wilts under long durations of isolation.
Like the muscles of the body, it requires exercise to stay useful and fit.
I do what I can to run rudimentary equations in my mind, but I have no one to corroborate the accuracy of my solutions to the imagined mathematics.
An urge to self-terminate comes and goes.
No real effort has been made to keep me from suicide; the metal slats screwed into the windows to prevent escape are cautionary.
Plenty of glass, utensils, fabric for rope.
I could even drown myself in the tub or toilet if I grew desperate enough.
Though my existence has dwindled to only essences, one of those essences is survival.
Not by any cognizant desire of mine, but leftover instinct buried in my DNA.
A life-virus that hopes one day to propagate, to replicate.
It won’t—there was never a chance for that even before this—but I play a gracious host.
I float in the foam of space-time. Actual time passes in the usual way, a clock next to the bed clicks each minute. It is my sole connection to the orbit of Earth, which evidently goes on perfectly well in my absence. I am a non-factor in the continuation of society.
At least I am not insane. But.
One must permit a flame of madness to prevent the all-consuming fire of insanity.
I read. I read out loud. I read out loud to her.
A seven-foot-tall, ornate bookshelf made of polished white birch holds rows of well-loved books, their pages dog-eared and worn, text underlined and notated in neat blue ink.
I read these books aloud in my isolation, as if she’s here listening.
Other than these readings, I do not use my voice.
No one speaks to me, nor I to them, and I will not scream nor whimper.
So, while it may look like madness to read poetry and fiction aloud to no one, I am not insane. It is not madness to speak into the ether—it is only madness if it speaks back.
At 0700 hours, breakfast arrives in the clenched hands of my guard, Private Frank.
She places it on the dressing table without looking at me.
The same fare every day—two hard-boiled eggs, three strips of bacon that go untouched, eight cubes of roasted potato, and a tin cup of orange juice.
Adequate nutrition is provided at each meal.
Illness is inconvenient. Strength is required to endure. Death is not an option.
Breakfast indicates whether or not there will be a session.
Not by the content of the meal, but the presentation.
On days when I have a session, Private Frank removes one of the strips of bacon.
I don’t know what she does with it. Eats it, maybe, but this is her way of telling me to prepare.
We don’t speak to one another. Perhaps it has been expressly forbidden for her to do so, but I cannot begrudge her this.
What could we say to one another? Her years of idolization were for naught. I was never a hero to worship. I am a cautionary tale.
Only two strips of bacon today.
Preparation is not necessary. My life has been in preparation. Capture was always a threat. The burden of classified information included understanding that if one was caught, one would withstand any efforts to gather information until death.
Back when we were young teens, Theia often held Hunter, Mason, and me in cells and tested our ability to endure torture.
Deprivation of light, food, drink, or sleep.
Physical pain, emotional blackmailing—nothing was off-limits.
Mason never broke and neither did I. Hunter broke a lot.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle the torture, but that she thought it was unreasonable and unfair.
She’d escape her restraints or refuse to follow orders; or, if she correctly guessed it was going to happen, she would disappear for days on end.
Sometimes I wonder if Theia wasn’t initially relieved Hunter wouldn’t have to do the assassinations.
She was never as good at following directions as me.
There was always an unpredictable variable with Hunter, always the chance she would go off-script.
Theia never could’ve predicted I would change the script entirely.
The door swings open and shut with a heavy clunk.
Thick wood is laden with gleaming steel locks, five in total, above and below the door handle.
It is left open as Sergeant Perez prepares me.
He does not speak. I am stripped topless, my sturdy cotton shirt and elastic-band bra folded neatly on the floor.
Metal handcuffs dig into the existing bruises around my wrists in a pain that travels time—the present pressing upon the past. He tests the resistance and finds it satisfactory.
His fingertips, calloused but warm, touch the top of my shoulder briefly. Humanity comes to me in bursts.
Theia arrives for the session. I call them sessions for lack of any other appropriate term.
Torture might be accurate, but a touch dramatic for my taste.
It also insinuates we are enemies here, but we are not.
Nor is it assault; I am here as voluntarily as she is.
Again, a swift, self-induced exit is always possible.
Leather crinkles behind me. I close my eyes.
Depending on how long the sessions go for, I typically pass out from the pain.
It isn’t something I try to achieve, but it does happen.
Not today. Today, each strike is hot fire.
Some days are gentler than others—the choice of a whip is deliberate for this reason.
There is a lot of control in using a whip, more so than in electrocutions, sound or noise torture, et cetera.
The blood trickles down the landscape of my back, running along smooth skin and harsh veins of scar tissue, and I feel every moment of it.
The session ceases abruptly and she exits the room, replaced by Master Sergeant Perez.
Alisa treats my wounds in silence, which has led me to believe my containment is recorded.
I’d like to think Alisa would speak to me otherwise, but perhaps Alisa and Javier are disappointed that the pitiful orphan that they helped raise committed treason and undermined their hard work.
I’m dressed again and my tray of lunch is left on the dresser.
I have to eat. I refused early on. Not out of intransigence, but indifference.
A week of starvation passed and I was informed if I continued to refuse, I would be force-fed by tube.
Assuming that would be unpleasant, I began eating the rations brought to me.
It hurts to pick up the food off the tray. It doesn’t matter how slowly I eat, as long as the food is consumed by the time the next soldier arrives with fresh water and a meal. I will be left alone otherwise, for which I am grateful.
I am a derelict house, shuttered and rotting, haunted by her ghost. I do not have the courage nor desire to evict or exorcise her. Even if I could, it would not make a difference. She is here, always.
I am kept prisoner in Lucy’s bedroom.
I could be held in anywhere. I could be held in any facility, anywhere.
I could be held in any room, in any facility, anywhere.
But I am here, where she lived. Where her smell permeates even the consistent stench of blood and sweat.
Where her bed lies, untouched, in the center of the room.
I cannot sleep in it—I’ve taken up residence on the plush carpet instead.
Her photos stand in frames along baroque dressers.
Or, they used to stand but now lie flat, because I am weak.
No one knows this as well as Theia, who crafted this punishment.
Order cells are typically a cot, a toilet, floor-to-ceiling bars on one wall and three cement walls on the others.
Sparse, cold, and impersonal. This is a decadent four-poster bed, a bathroom with a gleaming porcelain toilet, glass-enclosed shower, and claw-foot tub.
This is nicer than any place I’ve ever laid my head, including Delilah’s hotel, and yet it is the most inhumane place she could’ve put me.
A mausoleum dedicated to the person I held most dear.
The person I let die. The person I failed.
If I wasn’t in such a constant state of emotional agony, I might be able to muster up a bit of awe at the ingenuity of it.
The sun sets in the late evening, as it usually does. If it were a non-session day, which outnumber session days by a significant ratio, I would do bodyweight calisthenics until the streams of orange light extinguish. It isn’t the kind of workout I am accustomed to, but strength helps endurance.
Once night has fallen, I crawl to the bookshelf and switch on her lamp.
Touch my fingers where hers once touched.
The colorful spines of her books beckon me.
I run my hands along the ghosts of her fingerprints on the fabric cover.
Cerulean blue, worn, with the title printed in black ink across the front. Catch-22. She was right. I do like it.
I tell the story to myself. I tell it to her ghost. I tell it to the seven photo frames I turned over. I tell it to the menagerie of Siberian tigers on her boudoir. I tell it to her, and she listens.
Sometimes, she speaks back. But I am not insane.
Not yet.
Two weeks pass with no sessions. Torturing a traitor is not the highest priority in a burgeoning democracy, I guess.
Besides, the location is the real torture.
Her whips and brands are perfunctory, more for her sake than mine.
My torture is marinating in this acid purgatory of my failure, eating away at me until I am nothing but bones and guilt.